On Some Planets, You Realize, This Means We're Married
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: Post-Christmas reunion, the Doctor and Clara go for a little peaceful togetherness time. "Bonding ritual" is taken a bit too literally. Major whouffaldi fluff, for which I would apologize if I was at all sorry.


**A/N: A bit of Whouffaldi fluff, because it's been a month and I miss those two crazy space kids.**

* * *

"Oops," says the Doctor. Clara narrows her eyes at him.

"Seriously," she says. "_Seriously_. You bring us to a planet where they tie us together within the first five minutes of sighting us, then put us in a place that I can _only_ describe as a _cell_, all whilst yelling at us in a way that can _only_ be seen as _hostile_, and leave us alone after cackling like crazed chickens about how _this'll show us_, and all you can say is _oops_?"

"You're using rather a lot of italics," says the Doctor, "are you feeling well?"

"Not even a very convincing oops!"

"But I like the bit where you described them as cackling like crazed chickens. It's the alliterative nature of the phrase, I suspect. Very attractive."

Clara takes a moment to try and get her breathing under control. It proves more difficult than expected, partly because she was shouting quite a lot, and partly because they didn't just tie them together, they tied them together very closely, wrists bound to wrists and ankles bound to ankles, with some rope around their waists and knees for good measure, and apart from hugging— once or twice— she's never stood this closely to this Doctor for this long. Which, while it's an experience to be noted for its novelty, is going to be awkward when they want to sit down.

"Doctor," she says, more or less calmly, "when I said, Let's go somewhere together, I was not expecting to be forcibly inducted into intense bonding rituals_ that involve actual bonds_."

He gives her a concerned frown, which makes his eyebrows look as though they are violently annexing the bridge of his nose. "The italics are getting worse. Do you have a fever?"

"Oh, shut up. Shut up, and go away." She lapses into a sulk.

He won't do one, and he can't do the other. Instead, he bites his lower lip for a moment, then offers, "I'm sorry, Clara. This is my fault."

"Of course it's your fault. I was _assuming_ it was your fault."

"I made a slight— miscalculation."

She lifts her hands, and perforce his, too, and shakes them around a bit. "_This_," she says, "is not a slight miscalculation. This is landing us on a planet that _ties us up _before we so much as say hello!"

"Oh, no, I didn't mean _that_. This is exactly where I intended to go. They've got beautiful glass sunsets, Clara, the atmosphere is so thin in places that the heat turns the sand into glass and the seas boil and everything reflects a million times over. You have to watch from a specially insulated bubble, of course, otherwise you'd be too busy boiling away yourself to appreciate the beauty of it. Occasionally they have public executions out there on the sands, so there's a bunch of glass statues that used to be hardened criminals. Nasty, of course, but oh what a way to go."

"While that sounds lovely," says Clara, her banked fury starting to stir up again, "none of it actually addresses the problem of _what exactly _landed us here in the first place, and furthermore, how we are going to _get out of it_, because at the moment, I fail to see how _sunsets _are going to help us, and if it's a question of _public execution_—"

She trails off abruptly, because he's leaned forward and put his mouth against her forehead. He stays like that for a few seconds, still, quiet, just breathing, and she fumbles for words.

"Doctor? — what are you doing?"

"Checking for a fever." He doesn't draw back, and his lips move against her skin as he speaks. "I can't detect one, though you are a bit warmer than usual."

She shifts away from him a bit. "Well. Close quarters. A cell and whatnot. You're hotter than I would have expected."

"Thanks," he says. "Though I can't take all the credit. Regeneration is a lottery."

She pulls her head back to blink up at him for a moment, only realizing when he gives her that unnervingly sharp grin, with all those unnervingly sharp teeth, that he's making a joke.

"Yeah, anyway," she grumbles, curling her fingers together and resting all four of their hands on his chest. "So if you intended to land us here—"

"To show you glass sunsets."

She closes her eyes briefly. "Doctor, whatever. Stop interrupting me."

"Yes boss."

"So if you intended to land us here, what exactly was this slight miscalculation of yours?"

"Ah," he says, looking slightly shifty, "I used a word I probably shouldn't have used."

"Bad language?" she says. "That doesn't sound like you."

"It wasn't bad language, as such. Not in normal situations, anyway. It was only poorly chosen, given the circumstances."

"Well, if you didn't accidentally tell one of them that their mother looked like a naughty word, then what, exactly, did you do?"

"I, er," he says, shifting uncomfortably. "I didn't say anything wrong. I just said, _Hello, I'm the Doctor, and this is Clara, my companion_."

"Oh." She blinks. "And— wait, they took exception to that?"

"Er— yes. Ish."

"Yes ish what? Explain."

"Well, you have to understand something about this planet, Clara," he says, launching into what will undoubtedly be a foreign history class that she will spend days trying to forget about. "They're very advanced, in some ways. They spent thousands of years with what you would view as a traditional culture— kids grow up, they choose a partner, they more or less spend the rest of their lives as couples in one way or another— sometimes trading off, like humans do—"

"It isn't," she says, and makes herself stop, because the last thing she wants to get into with the Doctor is a discussion on why relationships don't always work, and why labeling it as trading off is, to say the least, offensive. "Look, never mind humans. Humans didn't put us in here tied together. Let's move on."

"Ah, well, right, so, long story short, they decided that marriage only led to misery and introduced the Good of the Species Bill, which mandates open relationships and outlaws monogamous ones."

He says this last bit very quickly, as though he desperately wants to get it over with. She looks up at him, a bit suspiciously.

"So you calling me your companion—"

"Was misunderstood. Well. Not misunderstood. Misconstrued. Under the circumstances."

"So you told them we were married?"

"Inadvertently, yes."

"And this is what being married gets you, on this planet." She lifts their joined hands again. "Incarceration and forcible togetherness."

"Forcible togetherness is typically seen as the quickest way to get two people to turn from loving each other to hating each other," the Doctor supplies. "It's a cynical worldview, but not without a certain amount of historical justification. Not just in this culture, either. Why, the Belefrostians of the moon Yohan Millevitch are taken away from their families at age twelve, because every war they ever fought was started over Christmas dinner. And just look at crocodiles."

"Doctor— what_ about_ crocodiles?"

"Well, they eat their young, don't they?"

Clara heaves a sigh, and shakes her head. "All of this is beside the point, because what the point actually is, Doctor, is that—"

He shushes her suddenly, which she doesn't appreciate, but she knows he wouldn't do it without reason, so she lapses into silence with only a roll of her eyes. There are, in fact, sounds coming from beyond the door, though she can't quite tell what they are. She would expect footsteps, but then again, their captors kind of slither rather than walk, so that sound like silk through rice grains very well could be them approaching. Then there's a fumbling noise at the door, a clanking, and then she's no longer capable of analyzing anything much, because the Doctor has leaned forward and kissed her. Caught her with her mouth open, too, which he takes advantage of rather more swiftly than she would have thought, and he presses forward so she backs up into the wall of the cell, their hands trapped between them, and her mind is a white blank space— except there's a lick of flame in it, now, and this feels like a challenge, so she kisses him back, because everything should have a winner, and every winner should always be Clara.

From the door there is a shout of what sounds a lot like disgust, and then the sound of the door slamming shut once more, and the chains on the outside of it rattling, a lock clicking home. The Doctor breaks away from her and shoots a triumphant look at the door, as though it had doubted his ability to snog his companion within an inch of her life and he's just proven it wrong.

Clara says, somewhat dizzily, "Okay, what was _that_ about. And _don't_ say you were checking for a fever."

"We were arguing," he says. "I couldn't let them see us arguing."

"So you decide to snog me instead? Why?"

"So they would leave us alone."

"I hate to harp on, but again, _why_?"

"So we could finish our argument," says the Doctor. "I thought that was obvious."

Clara sighs, and lifts her hands. She wants to put her hand on her forehead and close her eyes, hide her face for a moment from his scrutiny, but she's forgotten that they're still bound until her fingers brush against the underside of his chin, then accidentally at the edge of his mouth, clumsy and soft, and her head shoots upwards and her eyes snag on his.

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," he says, voice low.

"Okay." She licks her lips, and tries not to notice that his eyes are following the movement. "Okay. I get why you— I just— that isn't— oh, I need some space."

"Sure," says the Doctor, and he manipulates their hands around for a moment down at his side— it twists at her wrists and she shuffles uncomfortably— then delves into his pocket and comes up with a small pocket knife. She's expected the sonic screwdriver, so this is actually rather a pleasant surprise. He undoes the knot between their hands deftly, and she shakes her head.

"You mean you could have untied us at the beginning of all this? Why didn't you, for God's sake?"

"I'm sorry," he says, mildly annoyed, "I thought you were enjoying it."

She has no answer for that, not really. She only watches as he bends down, nearly double, and saws at the rope round their ankles.

"Do we really have to finish this argument here?" she says. "Can't we do it someplace less cell-y? Like the TARDIS?"

"Or the reinforced sunset-viewing bubble!" he says enthusiastically, popping back up. "Perfect place for an argument. If it looks like the other person is winning, you can jettison them onto the beach and watch them fry." She raises an eyebrow at him. "That was a joke," he says, "please don't jettison me onto the beach, Clara. I promise, I'll never do anything like this again."

He reaches for the rope around their waist and begins to unwind it, his arms around her; she puts a hand on his arm and stops him.

"This wasn't all bad," she says. "A little awkward, but— not all bad."

He's watching her, his eyes intense, only a few inches away. She takes a deep breath, and knows that he can feel it.

"Just— do me a favor. Be a bit more careful in future, with your words. It isn't that I mind forcible togetherness with you, exactly. Just— maybe not with a rope involved."

"Right," he murmurs, and his arms are still around her— she finds this surprising. But maybe she shouldn't. Since she joined back up with him, he's been considerably more tactile. Maybe this is the next development in their friendship; she wouldn't mind. "We don't hate each other, do we, Clara?"

"No," she says, "we don't."

"So they didn't win. They stuck us together, and they still didn't win."

She tilts her head to one side, and looks down, somewhere around his elbow, so she doesn't have to meet the intensity of his eyes. She smiles.

"Who did, then?"

"You, I expect," says the Doctor, with a simple little shrug. "You always win, in the end, Clara."

"Cheating," she murmurs to his elbow. "You always know what to say so I can't stay mad at you."

He gives another little shrug, and his arms tighten around her waist, very briefly.

"So maybe we both win, then," he says.

He takes her off to see the sunset, and Clara sits with her arm through his and her head leaning against his shoulder. They don't argue.

* * *

Not even later, when it happens again, on another planet entirely.

"Well," says the Doctor, "there's no rope involved."

His tone is so hopeful, Clara can't really bring herself to be angry with him. She only sighs instead.

"So what happened this time?"

This time is a little different. Their wrists are bound with satin cords, more like braided ribbon than anything else, and they're seated on a comfortable little sofa, mounded with cushions. There is a window, through which stars and planets can be seen, but only birdsong heard. It's a bit disconcerting, Clara finds, leading the mind to look for gigantic space-dwelling robins.

"I told them," says the Doctor, justifying himself. "I told them in no uncertain terms, I said, _Hello, I'm the Doctor, and this is my Clara, and we aren't married_."

"Good for you," she says, since he always preens himself under commendation, like a cat, or a pre-schooler. "And what did they say? I didn't catch it, I was distracted looking for space robins."

"Ah, well," says the Doctor, deflating somewhat. "They said,_ Oh, really? Well, we'll fix that for you_, and tied us up, and here we are." He lifts their joined hands, but carefully. She hardly feels the tug. She considers for a moment, then twines her fingers through his. It's awkward, but she makes it work.

"Doctor," she says, "do you ever get the feeling that the universe is trying to tell us something?"

He ponders this, eyes on the ceiling. "Well," he says after a moment, "I do have a hunch that we should either stop trying to define our relationship, or—"

Relationship. She wants to laugh, she thinks, or does she want to cry? No. Definitely laugh. Relationship is not a word that the Doctor should use.

"—friendship, or whatever we are," amends the Doctor, frowning at her as she giggles. "Or—"

"Or?"

"Find a better word," he says, and his fingers have tightened on hers. Does he even realize it? She can't tell. But he isn't meeting her gaze, and his eyes are significantly lower. On her mouth, she thinks, and she presses her lips together reflexively, but his eyes do not waver.

"Maybe," she says, "that wouldn't be a terrible idea."

"It could be an adventure," he offers. "There's billions of languages in the universe. Trillions. And all the little off-shoots and dialects. Surely something must fit."

"Maybe something in italics," she suggests.

"Or quotation marks."

"Parentheses."

"Hyperbolic romanticism," he counters.

"Such as?"

She had thought to stump him, but he's ready with a demonstration. "Such as, _This is Clara, she's my everything_." She laughs, and he smiles. "Yes, hyperbolic romanticism can be hilarious, can't it?"

"Very. But the idea's good. I like the thought of setting off on an adventure with a purpose, Doctor."

"Good," he says, as though this was all he was waiting for, and his deft fingers make short work of the satin ribbon. Hands free, he doesn't protest when she immediately takes one of his and heads for the door. "Where to first, boss?"

"Anywhere," she says. "Everywhere."

"To the TARDIS," he says, with infinite practicality and calm, and waves his free hand. "Then, anywhere, everywhere, et cetera. What d'you think, Clara? The constellation of Marsees Eight, where every planet is a library?"

"What are we waiting for?" she says gently, and they elope. Oh, she's going to call it _escaping _in her head, there are guards and they have to run, but that doesn't make a difference. She knows _exactly_ what it is.


End file.
